The Tenth Prayer: A Novel of Israel

By Stephen G. Esrati

The Tenth Prayer tells the story of Israel in its early days. The book follows half a dozen people from the 1930s through 1960 and focuses on one theme: "Who is a Jew?"

That question, which has divided Israel since independence, is raised by a character saying "I want to be a Jew, a Jewish Jew from Palestine."

It is raised again by a follower of the Irgun Zvai Leumi who uses "Hebrew" as a nationality. And it is raised again when a whole village of Italian Catholics converts to Judaism during the war and must fight for acceptance as Jews. Finally, it is raised in the death of a baby of an Israeli Jew and an American Baptist, a baby that cannot be buried under Israeli law.

Also touched on are civil rights, freedom of the press, the Law of Return, the Eichmann case, and the little Eichmann case (a Zionist leader accused of helping the Germans), which leads to unpunished murder.

The novel brings the story only to 1960, but it portrays the new country without the adulation of previous English-language fiction, as might be imagined since the main character is the woman who broadcast as the Voice of Fighting Zion, broadcasting station of the Irgun. Other characters include a kibbutz woman who must leave her settlement because her husband voted for the wrong party, an assimilated American Jew who was active in Peter Bergsons American League for a Free Palestine.

One character spends time in a Lebanese concentration camp where this author was the first American hostage in Lebanon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 21, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462816200

Stephen G. Esrati

Stephen G. Esrati,73, a retired Cleveland Plain Dealer editor and prolific philatelic journalist, was among the first American hostages in Lebanon. He worked on the Boston Herald-Traveler, The Celina (Ohio) Daily Standard, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and The Plain Dealer. Born in Berlin in 1927, Esrati moved to Palestine in 1933 and to the United States in 1937. He holds two degrees in political science from Boston University. He served in Italy in the U.S. Army in World War II and was recalled to active duty for the Korean war. He also served in the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Jewish underground army in Palestine. He was active in the U.S. Army Reserve through 1960, last as a sergeant first class in the 320th Special Forces Group in Boston. His experiences in Special Forces formed part of the background for his earlier novel, Comrades, Avenge Us. Esrati and 60 other men were removed from a U.S. passenger ship, the Marine Carp, in Beirut shortly after Israel declared its independence in 1948. The Lebanese claimed they were “Zionists heading for Palestine to fight.” They were held about six weeks in a former French army barracks in Baalbek that later became the headquarters of Hizbullah. His nonphilatelic writings have appeared in newspapers on three continents.

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Copyright © 2000 by Stephen G. Esrati

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

SCRAPBOOK I

LETTER TO THE TERRORISTS OF PALESTINE

GENIA I

GENIA II

JACK I

JACK II

JACK III

JACK IV

JACK V

DAVE I

DAVE II

JACK AND NAOMI I

GENIA III

JACK AND NAOMI II

GENIA IV

SCRAPBOOK II

THE VOICE OF FIGHTING ZION

DAVE III

YOKHANAN I

DAVE IV

MANNY I

JACK AND NAOMI III

YOKHANAN II

JACK AND NAOMI IV

DAVE V

GENIA V

JACK AND NAOMI V

EPILOGUE

Sound the great horn for our freedom; Lift up the ensign to gather our exiles, And gather us from the four corners of the Earth. Blessed art Thou, Oh Lord, Who gatherest the banished ones of Thy people,

Israel.

The Tenth Prayer

From the morning service

SCRAPBOOK I

[This ad appeared in the newspaper PM in 1947]

LETTER TO THE TERRORISTS OF PALESTINE

My Brave Friends: You may not believe what I write you, for there is a lot of fertilizer in the air at the moment. But, on my word as an old reporter, what I write is true. The Jews of America are for you. You are their champions. You are the grin they wear. You are the feather in their hats. In the past fifteen hundred years every nation in Europe has taken a crack at the Jews. This time the British are at bat. You are the first answer that makes sense—to the New World. Every time you blow up a British arsenal, or wreck a British jail, or send a British railroad train sky high, or rob a British bank or let go with your guns and bombs at the British betrayers and invaders of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts.

Not all Jews, of course. The only time the Jews present a United Front is when they lie piled by the millions in the massacre pits. I shenk you this front. I like yours better. Historically, the corpses of the Jews are very impressive as to numbers. But they are not a monument to Jewish valor.

They are a monument only to the brutality of the Europeans who piled them up. The Jews of America are for you because the corpse of an Irgun soldier is a unique and very high class type of Jewish corpse.

The corpse of Dov Gruner hanging from a British gallows is not a monument to the British brutality that strangled him.

It is a monument to the Hebrew valor that fights for a homeland of its own—and for the dignity of all Jews who have a homeland elsewhere.

Jewish Tories, Too!

Brave Friends, I can imagine you wondering. If the Jews of America are behind us why don’t they help us with their support and money?

This is a legitimate curiosity. I’ll try to answer it.

It so happens that a small percentage of the Jews of America are not behind you—yet. (Remember you haven’t won yet.)

Unfortunately, this small percentage includes practically all the rich Jews of America, all the important ones, all the influential ones, all the heads of nearly all the Jewish organizations whom the American newspapers call the Jewish leaders.

They’re all against.

Every time you throw a punch at the British betrayers of your homeland, nearly all these Jews have a collective conniption fit.

They ululate and they deplore.

They rush in waving white handkerchiefs and alibis.

They didn’t do it—not they! Respectable people don’t fight. They gabble. This exhibition of weak stomachs, weak minds and weak spines would be the blackest mark ever pasted on the word Jew—were it only a Jewish exhibition.

Luckily for the Jews, history lightens their shameful antics.

History tells us (a little sadly) that respectability and wealth never line up with a revolution—or a fighting minority. The American Revolutionary Army under George Washington went a long time without shoes, guns or food.

The respectable and wealthy American colonists preferred British admiration to liberty and freedom.

They thought it was bad taste to fight for such things—against the British, of all people. And they wouldn’t kick in a dime.

In fact they proved their respectability by playing informer to the British.

You can see how little respectability has changed since 1776.

There’s another side to Jewish respectability. I’ll tell you a story to illustrate it,

I went to see the old Max Schmeling-Max Baer world championship fight with an important Jewish Hollywood tycoon. He sat beside me for nine rounds without raising his head to look at the ring. He couldn’t bear the spectacle of a Jew being beaten by a German.

But in the tenth round my Hollywood friend looked in the ring.

He not only looked. He jumped and cheered. He cheered so long and so hard he was hoarse for three days.

Schmeling was on his back and the referee was counting him out. It didn’t look good.

Maxie Baer, with the Star of David stitched on his trunks, was upright and grinning in a neutral corner. He looked fine.

Brave Friends, I can promise you that all the respectable and wealthy Jewish personalities will be on their feet cheering for you— in Round Ten.

They’ll all be for you when you don’t need them.

That’s the sad history of respectable people and Nervous Nellies, whatever their nationalities.

Right now all the respectability of the Jews is handsomely engaged in cooing before the Court of Nations.

Let me tell you what the Jews of America, such as myself, think of these capers.

It may give you a chuckle between jail deliveries.

We are aware that the British pulled the U.N. trick because they were frightened of you. They were afraid that your gallant and desperate fight for your homeland would gather for you the sympathy of the world.

It looked as if the cheering sections were for you. So they took their ball out of play by handing it to the referee—who was a personal friend.

The British figured that the sound of Jewish gabble before a world court would drown out the sound of Hebrew guns in Palestine.

Let me assure you, my Brave Friends, that it hasn’t and it won’t.

True enough, Jewish respectability is making a bit of noise at the moment. Our Jewish leaders are pleading for a Jewish sanctuary in fine and measured strophes.

They are not nearly as hot headed about it as were the bird lovers of America who a few years ago pleaded for a sanctuary for the vanishing penguin. But, barring a little steam, they are much alike.

They want a sanctuary where the Jews of Europe can all stand on a rock and eat philanthropy-fish till the Messiah arrives.

These Jewish Penguin Patriots are very proud for the moment because Somebody is listening to them.

Not the British or the Arabs, of course, who stand ready to shoot down Jews whether they turn into Penguins or Dodo birds.

And, thank God, not you.

The fact that you are keeping to your gallant fight against the British invaders is the sanest and healthiest thing that has happened to the battered Hebrew nation in 1500 years.

Not the gabble of respectable Jews, but your fight is the history of tomorrow.

It will be your fight that will win for the Jews of the World what they have never had-the respect of their enemies—and a land more honorable than a bird sanctuary.

Brave Friends, we are working to help you.

We Are Raising Funds For You

We are ringing doorbells and peddling your cause and passing the hat and trying to lift the heads of our Jewish respectables to have a look at the ring—before Round Ten.

It’s tough going—even on the fringe of a fight for freedom. So forgive us if our take is a little meager for the time.

The rich Jews are pouring millions into the business of feeding the survivors of German massacre.

But, for a change, the Jews of America hear more than Jewish groans for solace.

We hear Hebrew courage.

We hear a battle cry that rises above the pathetic gabble in Flushing Meadows.

We hear brave men fighting on despite torture, calumny, low supplies and overwhelming odds.

We hear you. We are out to raise millions for you.

And the money is coming in-not from Jews alone but from all Americans.

Because America is not a Fact Finding Committee and a State Department.

America is a dream of freedom in the hearts of its millions and a cheer for all brave men who fight its never ending battle. Hang on, Brave Friends, our money is on its way.

Yours as ever,

/s/ Ben Hecht

BEN HECHT, Co-Chairman

American League for a

Free Palestine

THE PALESTINE FREEDOM APPEAL, INC. Emanuel Cardozo, Chairman

Golania, 1931

GENIA I

Yevgenia Maximovna Koganova liked to recall the spring day in 1931 when she was the most important girl in the world.

It was May Day. The great military parade had finished passing through Red Square and the giant popular demonstration was about to begin. Genia and two other girls from her Young Pioneer brigade broke from the head of the Moscow children’s delegation and ran up the stairs of the Lenin Mausoleum. A red bow dangled from her pigtail and a red neckerchief was tied around her white sailor blouse.

With the self-assurance that comes at the age of eight, she presented her bouquet of red roses to Comrade Stalin, who picked her up in his arms and held her so she could see the procession in the square below.

Standing a few feet to the left of Stalin was Maxim Koganov, her proud father, who threw her a kiss before resuming his clenched-fist salute.

Comrade Maxim, who had been at the Smolny Institute in Petrograd with Trotsky and Lenin in 1917, did not assume his post atop the tomb for the celebration of the Great October Revolution that year. Near the end of summer, he was arrested and tried on charges of sabotage and counterrevolutionary wrecking. He confessed and was secretly shot.

On the day Maxim Davidovitch Koganov was arrested, Genia’s mother and her Uncle Alexei took her to Leningrad to stay with Babushka Koganova. It was a Tuesday. That Friday Izvestia published Maxim’s confession; Mama and Uncle Alexei were arrested that afternoon as they came out of Babushka’s apartment.

Genia, however, was safe with Babushka, an old-fashioned woman who ate by candlelight that evening.

Why don’t we turn on the lights, Babushka? Genia asked.

Because we are Jews and today is a Jewish holy day.

But we were Jews in Moscow, too, and we always had lights. Why can’t we have lights here? Genia insisted.

Shh, Genushka, the old woman answered, your life in Moscow came to evil because your father forgot his heritage. But you must never tell anyone that I eat by candlelight on Friday. People must not know. Can we keep it our little secret?

Yes, Babushka.

The danger that Genia would share the secret was slight. It had been understood by all that as soon as the first three stars could be seen in the sky on Saturday evening, signifying the end of the Sabbath, Babushka would take Genia to visit relatives in Vilna. This was not easy in Leningrad where the nights were growing shorter and shorter and the white nights were about to begin, but Babushka made a little concession. At seven o’clock, although still bright daylight outside, she determined that if she were living in Jerusalem, the stars would be out and the Sabbath would be over. And then she could travel.

Uncle Alexei had made all the arrangements through Intourist, and Babushka had even been given some Lithuanian litas. Alexei did not tell Intourist that the relatives in Vilna were kindred only through their common descent from the Hebrew patriarchs, but Babushka was told where to go for help in Vilna.

Uncle Alexei had realized from the day of Maxim’s arrest that his mother was in danger once the protection of Maxim’s position no longer shielded her tenacious observance of Judaism, attendance at all Jewish funerals, and oft-expressed contempt for Maxim’s apostasy. That’s why he had made the arrangements for her to leave Mother Russia.

Babushka did not stop long in Vilna, and for several weeks Genia slept in hotels and rode on trains. Their trek eventually took them to Brindisi, a sunny city next to an ocean. On the way from the railway station to the harbor, they traveled in an open horse carriage along a boulevard lined on both sides with giant palm trees. Suddenly, their driver pulled his jitney to the side as a large group of men and a band came running down the center of the boulevard toward them. All wore black shirts.

These are Fascists, Genia, Babushka said. They are also our enemies just like your father’s gang.

*  *  *

Genia and her grandmother stood at the rail as the Esperia drew near the coast. That is Jaffa, Babushka said. It is an Arab town. Not far from here there are Jewish towns and cities. In one of them, very far away, my third son, your Uncle Moshe lives.

I have another uncle, Babushka?

Yes. He is my youngest son. Such a good boy! He went to Hebrew school even though your father kept making fun of him. He left Russia in 1919 and came here to live.

Moshe was the first to greet them as they clambered out of the long boat that ferried them ashore. He helped Genia out of the boat, then turned to his mother. As soon as they were both on firm land, he hugged and kissed them, speaking in Russian.

Genia smiled, happy to hear Russian.

Well, little Genia, her new uncle asked, have you enjoyed your trip?

Thank you. I was seasick once, but I was all right later. I learned to play tennis on the boat.

That’s nice, he said, but I’m afraid you will not be able to play tennis in your new home; we haven’t built tennis courts yet.

Turning back to his mother, Moshe asked after their luggage.

This suitcase is all we have. We left to go to Vilna for only a few days, you understand.

You left everything?

Yes. I found the ransom money in Vilna and bought Genia some lighter clothes in Brindisi. There was not as much money as I thought, but that is not important now that we are safely here.

Genia burst into tears. I don’t want to be here; I want to be back in Moscow with Papa. My Papa knows Comrade Stalin, and he’ll bring Papa and Mama back to Moscow, and then I can go home, too.

No, Genia, Moshe said gently, bending down to cuddle her. Stalin won’t bring anyone to Moscow. From now on, your home is here. You will like it. So stop crying and let’s go. We have a long trip before us.

She brightened quickly, asking: What do they call the place where you live Uncle Moshe?

"It is called Golania and it is like a kolkhoz. Do you know what a kolkhoz is, Genushka?"

"Yes. It is a big, big farm where Comrade Stalin has taken the land from the bad kulaks and given it to the workers and peasants."

Moshe roared with laughter as his mother made a grimace. Well, he said, you have the right idea, but Stalin had nothing to do with it. You’ll see.

They took a jitney from the port to Tel Aviv, riding past tan stone buildings along dusty streets, eventually emerging in a neighborhood where the buildings were built of stuccoed concrete, where people walked on the sidewalks and not in the middle of the street, and where everything looked clean and tidy.

The cab dropped them at a bus terminal. Moshe argued with the jitney driver awhile, then paid him with several coins, some of which had holes in the middle.

Grandmother had immediately noticed the change from Jaffa to Tel Aviv, which butted on each other cheek-by-jowl. Look, she said, the signs are in Yiddish!

No, Mama. They are Hebrew, Moshe corrected her.

On the bus out of Tel Aviv they sat behind two men in flowing Arab headdress.

Uncle Moshe, Genia said, why are those men wearing bandages?

Those are not bandages, Genia, he told her. "They are keffiyehs; they are worn like hats by Arabs."

What are Arabs?

They are our neighbors, but we have not yet learned to live at peace with them or they with us.

It was a long, long ride through lots of little towns. They changed buses at Haifa and Tiberias, and it was dark when they arrived at Golania, two miles northeast of Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The bus stopped at the end of a paved road and turned to go back to the highway. Moshe took the mail and the suitcase and led them down a dirt road to a gateway, the entrance to Golania. A small crowd awaited them there.

Children of Genia’s age began to sing as they approached. A girl ran forward and gave Genia a bouquet of flowers, saying something Genia did not understand. Moshe introduced them to a sunburned woman: This is my wife Shula. Shula cannot speak Russian, so you must learn Hebrew. This is my son, Avner, and this is my baby daughter, Rina.

During the introductions, all in Russian, Genia shook hands solemnly with each member of Moshe’s family and gave Shula a kiss on each cheek. Babushka was introduced next, this time in Hebrew. Moshe’s children sprang to life and threw their arms around her and called her sabta.

What language do you speak, Shula? Sabta asked.

Moshe translated.

Just Hebrew, Sabta.

Is there no one here with whom Genia can speak?

Oh yes, Shula said, some of the members know Russian. But Hebrew is our language. Fear not; she will learn it.

Moshe and Shula lived in a long wooden house with four rooms. They used only one of the rooms; the other rooms housed two married couples and a pair of bachelors. A covered porch ran past the four doors and had a toilet and a washroom at each end. Flowers decorated the long edge of the porch.

Moshe’s room contained beds against three walls. In the middle stood a small table and one chair. Along one wall next to the central door, there was a bookcase, crowded with books and maga-zines. On top of it, between two brass candlesticks, stood a painting of Shula. Along the other wall stood an open wardrobe with only a few clothes hanging in it and only a few piled up on the open shelves.

Moshe pointed to a bed along the far wall: That is your bed, Mama. We will be able to move you to a room of your own soon, but meanwhile I hope you will be comfortable here.

Where do I sleep, Uncle Moshe?

For you we have a much finer bed, Genushka. Would you like to see it?

Yes, please.

Avner, take Genia to your house, he told his son, then explained in Russian.

Avner extended his hand to his cousin and led her out. They walked to a concrete building, the only one in the settlement that was not built of wood. Using sign language, Avner pointed to Genia’s bed. Over it, the children had put up a banner with Russian lettering.

Welcome, Yevgenia, Avner said in Hebrew, pointing to the banner.

Welcome, she repeated.

*  *  *

The arrival of Genia and her grandmother was celebrated at a late dinner that night in the communal dining room, a large wooden building that also served as a theater and community house. The tables were set up for a celebration to form a large horseshoe. The white cloths that covered the tables usually served as sheets. Flowers were placed next to each table’s kolbo, the large bowl used for olive pits, chicken bones, eggshells, and other detritus.

Genia was placed at a table with Avner and other children who would be in her class; grandmother sat with Shula and Moshe. Everyone sat on wooden benches. The food was brought in from the kitchen on a metal trolley carrying large dishes to be served family style by a big teen-aged girl in blue shorts that fit tightly around each leg like bloomers.

The children, who only rarely ate in the dining room, wore their Sabbath clothes—khaki shorts or bloomers, blue shirts tied at the neck with a red string—and a woman came and tied a towel around each of them. When she came to Genia, she smiled and said hello. Genia repeated the word, and the children let up a chorus of shouts as each tried the game of getting Genia to say something. The woman quieted them down

After dinner, Moshe got to his feet, holding up his tea glass by its pewter handle. He said something and everyone stopped talking to listen. He went on and on. Then someone else got up, but she had an accordion and began to play. Genia recognized the Communist song, but when everyone began to sing, she realized that only the melody was the same.

But at the end, they all stood while everybody sang the Soviet national anthem. Genia knew the words: Arise ye prisoners of starvation … But again, everyone else sang different words. Genia looked at Babushka. She was not singing.

After the singing, Moshe and Shula came over to tell Genia it was time for bed. He said he would see her tomorrow because this was his night to put Rina to bed.

What will I do all day until then? Genia asked. I can’t talk to anyone, Uncle Moshe.

You will learn.

I hope so.

Good night, Genushka. Your grandmother and Shula will come to see you when you are ready to go to sleep.

The woman who had tied the towels around their necks in the dining room, also wearing shorts that looked like bloomers, watched them get undressed and washed. Their house was the only one in the meshek, the entire community, that had its own washrooms and toilets. The sinks were at the height where the children could use them and their toothbrushes were mounted near the sinks in a large rack with Hebrew lettering under each brush. The toothbrushes were the only private property any of the children had. Everything else, including their shoes and clothes, were worn by whoever they fit. They bore no identifying marks and were handed out when they came from the laundry according to the size marked on each item of apparel.

When all the children had gone to bed, the parents began to arrive. After a short visit, the length of which the parents enforced strictly so no child would get more attention than any other, the children were kissed good night.

After Shula and Babushka left, Genia cried herself to sleep.

Golania, 1932-45

GENIA II

As the years passed, Genia learned to share everyone’s pride in Golania’s achievements. When the children’s house grew too crowded and a new one had to be built, Genia and her class visited the site regularly to watch the progress and ask the workmen questions. The workmen, of course, were members of Golania. The kibbutz at that time had no workers, paid or unpaid, from outside. It wouldn’t even think of such an idea.

In the children’s tours of their small world, they fed new-born animals, visited the babies in the nursery, watched the fishermen pull in their nets, planted their own little vegetable gardens, and went out into the fields to watch their parents work the land.

It was not too long before Genia felt the same possessiveness as all the other children. The kibbutz was theirs.

With the facility of a child, Genia learned Hebrew without difficulty. At first, she was taught reading and writing separately so she could catch up with her third-grade class. They were Kita Gimmel that year and each summer they moved up one letter in the alphabet.

*  *  *

Several years after Genia arrived in Golania, her name became the subject of a debate at a general meeting in the dining room. Moshe "Gimmel," the third bearer of the name, got up and said he thought Genia should have a Hebrew name like the rest of Moshe’s family.

Moshe HaCohen, who needed no alphabet letter after his name because he was the first in the kibbutz to be called Moshe, asked Moshe "Gimmel" if he meant Koganova.

No, he said. I mean the whole name: Yevgenia Koganova.

But you don’t understand, Moshe said. Genia does not yet know that Stalin killed her father and maybe my sister-in-law and my brother. I want her to keep her name so her family can find her. I believe that is a good reason for her to keep her name.

Moshe "Gimmel–" apologized and said he would not ask for a vote on the matter.

But Moshe explained it all to Genia on Sabbath morning, when they ate heavy clotted cream and had honey for breakfast along with the vegetables and the hard-boiled eggs. He had asked her to eat with Shula, Sabta, and himself and she sat and watched him spoon the cream over his salad. She wrinkled up her nose.

It tastes much better if you eat it plain and sprinkle sugar on it, Uncle Moshe. You want to try mine?

She shoved her plate across the table, and Moshe tried it.

Good! he said. But the cucumbers also taste much better with the cream on them. You want to try?

Eventually, he got to the point, speaking in Russian so his mother could understand better: Genia, your father was a great man. He may not have been right in all that he did, but he was still a great man. He will be inscribed into the pages of the history of our people as a man who helped change the world. Unfortunately, your father has been dead now for five years. We did not tell you because we did not want you to lose hope.

I knew, Uncle Moshe. I figured it out in Vilna.

Sabta put her arm around her granddaughter and hugged her, saying, I did not tell her, Moshe.

No, Sabta. I overheard what you told our ‘cousins’ in Vilna. But my Mama is still alive, isn’t she?

Moshe answered: We do not know, Genia. But as long as we do not know, I think you should keep the name my brother gave you, Yevgenia Maximovna Koganova. You should bear his name not only so that your mother may someday find you but also to remind the world that Maxim Koganov lives in you and that you have found the true road to socialism.

*  *  *

The problem of the name was eventually overshadowed by a problem that was much more personal. Genia. woke up one morning and found that she was wet. She stayed in bed, ashamed to get out.

When Yudit, their teacher and mother surrogate, came in, Genia whispered her secret in Yudit’s ear: I am in heat, Yudit.

You mean you are having your first period, Genia. You need not be ashamed of that. Come, let us go into the washroom together.

No, they’ll see.

Don’t you think it was wrong for Adam and Eve to be ashamed all of a sudden? But, if you wish, I’ll bring you a washcloth and you can get cleaned up under the blanket. But if we do that, everybody will know. Come, get washed and dressed and we’ll go to the dispensary together.

Reluctantly, Genia got out of bed. The boys appeared to pay no attention, but Miriam came over and whispered to Genia that it had also happened to her. Genia lost her sense of embarrassment and took a shower as Yudit quietly explained what was taking place in Genia’s body. On the way to the dispensary, they passed the sewing room where Sabta was working, Sabta, Genia cried out proudly, now, I am a woman.

*  *  *

One day when they were all working in the potato field, Avner and Shalom, the two boys who had become Genia’s best friends, began to tease Oded and Hava, Golania’s.

Oded, Shalom shouted, you and Hava are still babies. The other girls have become women. Avner and I have started to grow hair here, but you and Hava are still children.

I have hair here, too, Hava said, belligerently.

In girls, Avner expounded with all the wisdom of his twelve years, that does not count. Girls have to have what Genia and Miriam have, then they become women.

*  *  *

Sabta, still shocked by the way in which the children lived together, brought up that subject one evening as she sat with Moshe and Shula in the eucalyptus grove, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. By now, Sabta knew Hebrew well enough so that she and Shula had no need for Moshe’s translations.

Shula assured Sabta that she need not worry; the children were better off growing up with knowledge and fact than with half truths and smut like city children.

But Shula, the old woman persisted, they can’t keep on sharing their rooms like this. Who knows what they will start doing soon.

Sabta, they would do the same things even if they were kept apart. I did. Moshe did. You probably did, too. Isn’t that right, Moshe?

Yes, Mama, it is. Remember that they are rarely alone. They will not get into trouble. But I want to assure you that the age at which the children are separated by sex is still being discussed in all kibbutzim. Right now, the age varies, but in no case is it done before they leave elementary school. In one of the older kibbutzim, they tried to segregate at thirteen, and the children were unhappy at the sudden separation. I don’t know the ideal age, but I suppose we will eventually split them. But we do have to take the twins into consideration. Apparently their development is a bit slower, and we can’t do something that would injure them.

The discussion about moving the